Selling In a Slowing Economy

I am not an alarmist. In fact, if you’ve spent any time with me, you've probably noticed I am relentlessly positive and particularly when it comes to the mindsets and techniques of sales. 

However, our economy is turning a corner, and the environment is changing. As such, for many of you, sales will change. 

For evidence I give you two categories of observations: 

First, our stock markets have obviously shifted with significant drops occurring frequently. Year-to-date, the Dow is down more than 2%, its first drop since 2015 and only its second down year since 2008. 

Second, I regularly listen to economists speaking at the same industry association meetings that I speak at on sales. There is consensus among them that 2019 will be a flat to down year. Many of my clients sell products and services revolving around the construction industry. Their observations support this analysis. 

As the economy slows, you will notice changes: the phone won’t be ringing as much. Incoming orders will decrease. Quantities will be down, and product variety per order will also contract. 

In a slowing economy especially, proactive salespeople will always outperform reactive ones. 

More than ever, we will need to intentionally sell. This means picking up the phone to call customers and prospects instead of waiting for the phone to ring. It means telling customers what else they can buy from us, because today, they don’t know. It means actively asking for the business. It also means asking customers what else they buy from others because you would like to help them with that. 

A slowing economy means we will need to be more present for our customers and prospects. We will need to demonstrate that we care about winning their business because there will be less of it to go around. 

This is, of course, quite easy to do. 

We must simply communicate more. And customers will thank us with their money. 

In a slowing economy, this will be more critical than ever. 

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